Apple told us it was time to move on when it killed two of its most popular apps, Aperture for photographers and iTunes, a music storage system that launched many DJ careers.
But an open-source app, aptly named Retroactive, brings new life to those beloved programs so that they can run in macOS Catalina.
Apple promised beefed up performance with its newest mac operating system when it was released this fall. But the advancements weren’t welcoming to all of our favorite software.
Apple gave up on updates to Aperture five years ago, but photographers who liked the pro-level program were able to operate it until macOS Catalina. Apple also announced it would pull the plug on iTunes for the new macOS.
Retroactive modifies iTunes, Aperture and iTunes (replaced by Apple Photos) so that you can update your Mac with no worries.
Retroactive is free to download on GitHub, which will walk users through the installation process. In most cases, you will be up and running within a couple of minutes. For iTunes, it can take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour to install depending on the version you have.
During installation, Retroactive will automatically search for a copy of your old apps on your Mac.
The developers say you will get a warning from your Mac during installation.
“Retroactive will not harm your Mac,” the developers write on GitHub. “This alert only shows up because Retroactive is not notarized. Retroactive is open source, so you can always examine its source code to make sure it’s safe.”
According to the photography website DPReview, Retroactive does not preserve all features. For example, Aperture and iPhoto in Retroactive can not play videos or export slide shows.
